Senate Intelligence Committee

WASHINGTON - The deadly 2012 assault on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, was caused by the failure of the State Department to adequately protect the facility and poor intelligence-gathering by the CIA and other agencies, according to a harsh assessment by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The panel's findings, contained in a declassified 78-page report released Wednesday, criticize the State Department for failing to increase security at the isolated, undermanned compound.

WASHINGTON - A new policy bars employees of U.S. spy agencies from providing reporters with "intelligence information," even if it is unclassified, without first getting official permission. Employees who violate the directive, which was issued on March 20 by James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, face disciplinary action or firing. Critics said the order adds to a climate in which intelligence agency employees face greater risk in trying to help the public understand what the government is doing.

WASHINGTON - A long-simmering dispute between the CIA and its Senate overseers erupted into public view Tuesday when the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the agency of possible crimes and of attempting to intimidate committee staffers investigating the CIA's former use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the committee chairwoman, said the CIA secretly searched computers used by Senate staffers and might have violated constitutional provisions on separation of powers and unreasonable searches, a federal law on computer fraud and abuse, and a presidential order that prohibits the CIA from domestic searches and surveillance.

WASHINGTON - A secret Senate report on the CIA's treatment of Al Qaeda detainees from 2001 to 2006 concludes that the spy agency used brutal, unauthorized interrogation techniques, misrepresented key elements of the program to policymakers and the public, and actively sought to undermine congressional oversight, officials who have read the report say. Contrary to previous assertions by President George W. Bush and CIA leaders, the use of harsh interrogation...

The CIA once tried to intervene in Haiti's elections with a covert-action program that would have undercut the political strength of its current president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, according to congressional sources with firsthand knowledge of the incident. But the CIA's effort was stymied when the Senate Intelligence Committee ordered the CIA to halt the program, under which the agency tried to channel money for the use of some of the candidates in the 1987-88 Haitian elections.

The Senate Intelligence Committee was told nothing about a senior KGB major general who, according to published accounts, defected to the United States last year and was in CIA custody, said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), vice chairman of the panel. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.) said, however, that he had received a "preliminary report" on the alleged defector. He declined to comment further. CIA spokeswoman Kathy Pherson also refused to comment.

Sen. Dave Durenberger was a "gentleman" following his arrest for disorderly conduct and the incident could have been avoided if he had properly identified himself, state police said Tuesday. Durenberger (R-Minn.) was arrested Sunday night following a shouting match with police as he tried to catch a taxi at Logan International Airport, police said. Charges against the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee were dismissed Monday.

WASHINGTON - After news reports that the National Security Agency had secretly monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone calls, America's top intelligence official was asked why congressional oversight committees were kept in the dark. Shouldn't Congress have been briefed, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) asked James R. Clapper, the director of national intelligence, about a spying operation that would embarrass the U.S. government if exposed? "Well, sir, there are many things we do in intelligence that, if revealed, would have the potential for all kinds of blowback," Clapper replied at a House Intelligence Committee hearing in October.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee assailed a White House plan to declassify and release a secret Nicaraguan document on the Managua regime's lobbying tactics as a bald political ploy and a "betrayal of the American people." In a written statement, Sen. Dave Durenberger (Minn.

Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), voted to declassify parts of its report on the CIA's rendition, detention and interrogation program. The White House, the CIA and the Senate still have to negotiate which portions of the report will be redacted before it is made public. But this is an important step in resolving the ugly dispute that has erupted between the intelligence committee and the intelligence agency. The dispute presents two very serious questions.

More than a year after it approved a report critical of the CIA's interrogation and detention policies, the Senate Intelligence Committee has voted to make a portion of the document public. It's now up to President Obama to ensure that the agency doesn't mount a rear-guard attempt to censor or sanitize the committee's findings in the name of national security. Thanks to news reports and a report by the CIA's inspector general, Americans long have been aware of both the broad outlines and some abhorrent details of the Bush administration's mistreatment of suspected terrorists after 9/11.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's comment last week that women face a double standard in politics raised eyebrows. And then came former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden to prove her point. It happened in reference to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who has been embroiled in a battle with the CIA over a Senate report that detailed the spy agency's actions in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. “If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted,” Feinstein, who as head of the Senate Intelligence Committee has certainly been privy to the report's findings, said last month.

Re "CIA denies Senate spying claim," March 12 Anyone who fails to appreciate the supreme irony of Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-Calif.) righteous indignation over the CIA's alleged spying on and undermining of the Senate Intelligence Committee (of which Feinstein is chair) has not been paying attention. For years, she has been one of the intelligence community's most steadfast champions, deflecting criticism of the surveillance state, attacking whistle-blowers and justifying nearly every abuse.

WASHINGTON - A bitter public fight between Sen. Dianne Feinstein and CIA Director John Brennan has got President Obama caught between a powerful political ally and a trusted senior advisor - and on Wednesday he showed what an uncomfortable place that is. In his first public remarks on the clash, Obama tried not to take sides in the dispute that has erupted over whether Senate staffers improperly removed a sensitive document from CIA files, as...

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's accusation that the CIA has illegally spied on Congress has caused everyone from South Carolina's hawkish Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to on-the-run whistle-blower Edward Snowden to weigh in. Feinstein, a Democrat, chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. She claims there is evidence that the CIA conducted surveillance on committee staffers who were looking through classified documents related to the spy agency's interrogation and detention practices during the administration of President George W. Bush.

WASHINGTON - This is not Robert Eatinger's first run through a full-blown CIA controversy. But it's his most public ordeal. For most of his career, few outside the world of espionage knew of Eatinger, 56, who has spent 22 years moving up the ranks to become the CIA's top lawyer. But in a scathing speech Tuesday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused him of trying to impede a Senate investigation into a notorious CIA detention and interrogation program that Eatinger had helped manage.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and CIA Director John Brennan sparred Tuesday over the lawmaker's allegation that agency officials secretly had searched Senate computers, an act she said had undermined congressional intelligence oversight and may have violated the law. "I have grave concerns that the CIA search may well have violated the separation-of-powers principles," Feinstein said on...